Berlin is often credited with many positive things associated with its youth. Sports and academia top the list, but not many people realize the number of emerging talents in the fine arts. Vanessa Kowalski and Ryan Kalentkowski are two graduates of Berlin High School who have been recognized for their contribution to the arts.
Kowalski, a photographer who attends the School of Visual Arts in New York City, said she was “9 years old (when) my parents bought me a Polaroid camera for Christmas. I was in love- I could instantly hold a memory that had passed.” That love grew into a passion, and she kept with it for many years. “I could hold on to bits and pieces of my life through more than just words and fleeting thoughts. I had something real in my hands,” she continued.
Recently I was able to sit down with Kowalski and talk with her about photography and what inspires her to be creative.
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Q: Why did you start photographing?
A: It was too magical. Photography was how I came to understand myself. At a young age, I was able to discern what I liked about the world and what I didn't - and with photography I could send the message to someone else. It made me feel powerful.
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Q: What influenced you when you first started, and what influences you now?
A: My art has always been heavily influenced by nature. I, more often than not, photograph outdoors, making use of natural light and the landscape as my backdrop. Although I usually photograph the human body, I aim always to compare it to forms found in nature. I am most inspired to photograph when I travel, and personally feel that my best work comes when I am thrown into a new surrounding and asked to interpret it through my lens.
Q: Who are your influences?
A: I am very inspired by the Surrealist movement and its web of artists and literature. I admire the visual work, or writings of artists such as Rene Magritte, R.W. Emerson, Van Gogh, David Benjamin Sherry, Juergen Teller, Emma Hardy, and Marcel Duchamp.
Q: What type of photography are you mostly into?
A: I find myself drawn to very personal, fine-art photography, an almost journal-esque view of the world; although it is now becoming increasingly difficult to discern the difference between a fine-art photograph and a commercial or fashion photograph.
Q: Tell me about after high school. Where do you go to school now and what do you plan on doing in the next 10 years?
A: I am currently attending the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. I am working for the school's magazine, the Visual Opinion. I hope that the future allows me to pursue a career in travel photography, independently or perhaps for a magazine. I don't see myself putting a camera down.
Q: Any significant achievements you would like for me to know about?
A: Upon entering my sophomore year, I published my first book. The 250-page book is a collection of point-and-shoot photographs taken throughout the year by myself and my close friend Olivia Locher. It's essentially a yearbook, but the pictures are far from the type you'd expect to see in a school yearbook and instead entertains images of those around us getting too wild.
Q: How often do you photograph and what do you enjoy most about it?
A: I am always photographing! I am always conjuring new ideas for work and looking for new places to shoot and explore. I've always got a point and shoot in my purse. The most wonderful thing about photography is that a moment can make you laugh or smile, and a picture of that moment has the same ability. As I said - It's magical.
You can find Vanessa’s work online at VanessaKowalski.com.
Another emerging artist, Ryan Kalentkowski, is a painter and graduate of Berlin High School class of 2009. His paintings are unequivocally phenomenal. He sat down with me as well to discuss his career path and what he loves to paint.
Q: When did you start painting?
A: I've been drawing and doing things of that sort since I was very young in elementary school. I started messing with the idea of painting when I was 15 but started thinking of it more seriously around 16-17.
Q: Why did you start?
A: I started because I suppose I wanted to find something that interested me in visual art. I had previously wanted to get into animation since about second grade, but that idea had faded away completely by the time I got into high school.
Q: What influenced you when you first started and what influences you now?
A: I was influenced by the album cover of The Stone Roses' first album, where there was a painting that mimicked the style of Jackson Pollock and slices of an orange. I liked Jackson Pollock and that whole splatter painting thing because I figured that I could also do that. I also liked the idea of pop art, as well as others types of painters like Piet Mondrian.
Q: Who are your influences?
A: I really got into the Bay Area Figurative painters, people like Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Rembrandt, Utagawa Hiroshige, and so many more. Also, some of my friends and people I've worked with: Noé Jimenez, Heather Hill-Young, Tim Olech, Chris Pianka, Scott Hadfield and the list goes on...
Q: What type of art do you normally paint?
A: I've been really interested in abstracting the human figure and placing it in some sort of space.
Q: Tell me about after high school. Where do you go now and what do you plan on doing in the next 10 years?
A: I went to Montserrat College of Art for a year and currently study at Paier College of Art. I'm not quite sure exactly what I will be doing, but I do plan to move to a big city, maybe Boston.
Q: Any significant achievements you would like for me to know about?
A: I recently made a personal "breakthrough," in that I figured out a basic idea for which I can really work with, as far as how I'd like to portray the figures that I paint.
Q: How often do you paint and how long does an artwork usually take?
A: I usually try to continue work on a painting when the surface dries enough for me to work over it. Sometimes it's everyday for a time, or every other day, or sometimes it takes a week. In that case, I work on something else until I can resume. I usually spend 2-4 weeks consistently working on something, if not longer.
Ryan’s work can be found on his website, http://paintingstones.blogspot.com/
